Reels and Spindles: A Story of Mill Life

"Whew! Whoever she is she makes my eyes ache; and what a picture for father to see, the first at his new threshold!"

Yet apparently without noticing anything unpleasing, Mr. Kaye assisted his wife from the carryall and walked with her to where the stranger still sat and rocked. She did not rise at their approach, and returned the courteous greeting of the master and mistress of the house with the barest of nods.

"How do? I come to pay a call."

But not upon them. For the first time in their lives the artist and his lovely wife were relegated by this self-possessed young person to the land of "old folks," in whom she felt no interest.

With a twinkle in his eye that met an answering one in hers, the gentleman handed Mrs. Kaye on toward the eager Cleena, and turned to his children: —

"My dears, a visitor for you, I think."

So Amy and Hallam rode up and dismounted, while the former went forward slowly, smiling a welcome, yet feeling oddly disconcerted before this unknown girl.

"I'm Gwendolyn Jones. Ma said it wasn't no more 'n friendly to come an' call. I don't have no time 'cept Sunday an' Saturday-half. Then I generally go to Wallburg to do my shopping. It's such a trouble, shopping is, ain't it?"

"I don't know. I never did any," answered Amy, simply. She was amused by Gwendolyn, but regretful that the visit had been timed just then. She had counted upon showing the interior of the new home to her parents, with all the best features accented, and now she must leave them to see things for themselves. Besides, she was conscious that she had herself been noticed only in the slightest degree by this maiden whose big brown eyes were fixed upon Hallam with a steady gaze that annoyed him exceedingly. He was always more conscious of his lameness in the presence of a stranger, and the people he had met, heretofore, had been so well bred that beyond the first involuntary surprise at his condition they had ignored it entirely.

To his amazement Gwendolyn exclaimed: —

"So you're the lame fellow, are you? Well now, you don't look it, not above your waist. You look real likely in your face, and your shoulders is broader than Lionel Percival's. He's considered well growed, too."

"Is he?" asked poor Hallam, understanding that some sort of reply was expected.

"Yes; 'Bony' feels real sot up, don't he, taking care of them donkeys? Oh, I tell you, 'Bony' is a case."

"Is he?" again feebly ejaculated Hallam. He looked helplessly toward Amy, but she was disappearing indoors, too eager to be with her parents to loiter with this unprepossessing guest.

"Yes, he's telling all over the mill, and village too, how that he belongs to your folks now. He's going to live here, ain't he?"

"He may be. It will be just as Cleena wishes, I fancy. She is the one who has taken him in charge."

"That's the work girl, ain't it?"

To the young Kayes and their parents their faithful servant had never been anything save just "Cleena." Her position in their family was as assured as their own, and that she might be thought a "work girl" by others, was a novel idea to the lad. It gave him something natural to think about; and he stood leaning on his crutches, with a smile upon his face, looking down upon the girl in the rocking-chair, chewing gum and swaying so composedly.

"Why, yes; I suppose she is. She certainly works, and all the time. But I should hardly call her a 'girl.'"

"Say, you must be tired, standing so long. Take this chair. I'll step in and get another."

Again Hallam smiled. The girl, in her ignorant kindness of heart, had broken a minor law of that courtesy in which he had been educated. She had offered him the chair in which she had herself been sitting, instead of the fresh one she meant to get. But he declined both, saying: —

"Please don't trouble. I can easily bring one for myself."

Because she was curious to see how he would do this, she watched him and sat still. Now he was quite able to wait upon himself in most ways, and handled his crutches so deftly that they often seemed to Amy, as to him, "but an extra pair" of feet or hands, as the case might be.

So he swung himself into the house and out again, once more looking for his sister, and hearing her voice above stairs explaining, exhibiting, and regretting: —

"Isn't it too bad, mother, that this young lady should have come just now? Hal has worked so hard and done so much. Anyway, father, you must not, indeed you must not, go into your studio till he can take you there. It would be such a disappointment, for he's arranged and rearranged till I'm sure even your fine taste will be pleased."

He lingered a moment to catch the answer, and it filled his foreboding soul with great content.

"It is all very excellent thus far, dear, and we'll surely leave the studio for him to show. I had no idea you could so transform this barn of a place. From the outside it was ugliness itself, but you have all done wonders. We shall be very happy here."

"Can that really be father speaking? and we feared he would be utterly crushed. Amy was right. Blood tells. And there's something better even than blood to help him now. That's love. Dear old Adam was right, too: so long as we have each other we can be happy."

Then he caught up a light chair under his arm and swung himself back to play knight-errant to this unknown damsel.

She found him very agreeable, for he was a gentleman and could not fail in courtesy toward any woman, old or young. So agreeable, indeed, that she remained rocking, chewing, and talking, till the shadows of the autumn evening crept round them, and Cleena, watchful for her "child," and indignant at the intrusion of this stranger, appeared.

"Arrah musha, Master Hallam, will you be sittin' here catchin' your death? Come in by, immediate. The supper is on, an' the master waitin'. Sure, that's bad luck, for the first meal we're all together in the new home. Come by."

Hallam rose. It was impossible for him to avoid asking Gwendolyn to remain, and she, utterly ignoring the sniffs and scowls of Cleena, promptly accepted.

Of that meal it is not worth while to write. The girl did have the grace to keep reasonably quiet, though occasionally she would feel that this silence was not doing herself justice, and would break into the cheerful conversation of the others with a boldness and self-assertion that made Amy stare.

Finally she departed, and Mr. Kaye sighed his relief.

"Well, Friend Adam is the youngest old person, and Gwendolyn Jones is the oldest young person I ever saw," remarked Hallam, as he lighted his mother's bedroom candle and bade her good night.

CHAPTER XII.

BAD NEWS FROM BURNSIDE

"Yes, it is to be 'Charity House' now," said Salome Kaye, with that quiet decision of hers which, as Amy described it, "Never makes any fuss, and never wobbles."

"That's the best and the worst about mother. She never says 'yes' when she means 'no,' and she never says either till it's all settled. I remember how, when I was little, I used to ask, 'Is it decided?' and when she answered, 'Yes, it's decided,' I gave up teasing. Mountains might crush, but never move her."

"So it's 'Charity House' forever and a day. The trouble with you, mother, is that all you say – or the little you say – always means something. 'Charity House' is, I suppose, just as full of meaning as everything else. Isn't it? Let me guess. It's 'Charity' because cousin Archibald lets us live here for what he calls a 'starvation rent.' That's the meanest kind of 'Charity,' and it's a lie, too."

"Hallam!"

"But, mother, it is. I've heard these people talk, and they all say that the old curmudgeon – "

"Hallam, thee is proving that a 'Charity House' is the very sort of home thee needed."

"Well, motherkin, it's true. He is curmudgeon-y. He's tried for years to get a tenant for this property, and not even the mill folks would touch it. He took advantage of us and made us think we were getting a great deal for nothing."

"Are we not? Look about thee."

"Of course, it's big enough."

"What a curious place it is," said Amy; "like a box that eggs come in. See, this is it," and she rapidly sketched upon a paper the diagram. "Two partitions run this way, north and south, and two run at right angles. That's three rooms deep on each floor, look at it from any point of view. Each room is as like its neighbor as its twin. Hmm, I didn't realize it, but there are eighteen rooms if we count the halls and the 'black hole.'"

"Almost as large as 'Fairacres,' thee sees."

"It's not so bad, if it weren't so fearfully bare," remarked Hallam, examining Amy's sketch. "But it's queer."

The entrance hall was the middle front room of the old building. From this a flight of stairs ran up and ended in "the middle room" above, with a narrow flight behind into the attic. The upper middle room was therefore an open space, from the sides of which a narrow gallery had been reserved to surround the well-like opening of the stairway. Next the stairs the gallery was furnished with a strong plain railing, to prevent the accident of falling into the "well," and all the bedrooms had doors opening upon it.